


Coming Around

by BeanBunny



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Complete, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:26:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeanBunny/pseuds/BeanBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very extra super fluffy piece about the female crew of the SR2 holding night time 'girl parties'. (Mass Effect 2) Awesome art by emisolde. Written for the Mass Effect Big Bang challenge 2012!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
[](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v54/bean118/?action=view&current=beanbunnycover.png)   


  
art by [emisolde](http://emisolde.livejournal.com/7426.html)  


The mess was still, silent.

She'd never say it out loud, but she liked what Cerberus had done with the place. Sure, she'd rather be on an Alliance ship, but Cerberus knew their décor. It was bright white now, shiny, nearly chrome, and offered a steely silence at eleven o'clock at night, which was exactly when she liked to sneak out of her cabin.

She wasn't a fan of her cabin -- it was far too large. She'd rather just have a bunk and a foot locker. The mess offered something a little more ... military? If that made sense. Either way, it was wonderful to sit, alone, where it was quiet, with a glass of milk she'd stolen out of the fridge. Cerberus didn't take careful notes on rations, she could do that now. Besides, they were paying. She had no beef wasting Cerberus supplies.

She'd discovered that she loved to sit there at night until her glass was empty and try to think of nothing.

Which was why it was such a shock, when the elevator opened to the mess, and Shepard was greeted by a a full compliment of Normandy crew.

She stood there for a second, contemplating slipping away -- maybe no one had seen her? But then, why was the mess full? There was Miranda, Jack, Gabby, Tali, Samara --

Kelly spotted her. She could tell, her face lit up. "Shepard!" she cheered, and hopped up from her seat to go greet her. "That's crazy, when you didn't reply, I thought you hadn't gotten the invitation!"

"Invitation?" There was a party on her ship?

"Yeah, didn't you get the email? We're having a girl party tonight!" Kelly clapped her hands together. "You even remembered to wear your pajamas!"

"I, uh -- " Shepard looked around. Kelly wasn't kidding, before her was every female crew member in oversized tee shirts and big billowy cotton pants. (Well, excepting Jack, but what do you do.)

Speak of the devil, she saw Jack sneer. "I didn't know Shepard could be out of a uniform. I figured she showered in it."

Kelly rolled her eyes with a smile on her face. (She had sessions with Jack, Shepard thought, couldn't she tell that Jack was being sincere?) "Look, come on over here. Gabby made cookies."

She thought about it – late night cookies were fine, but they weren't the greatest bribe to keep her in the mess. "What exactly do you do at a girl party?" ashed Shepard.

Tali giggled. "Eat crap, wear jammies. I bought Framacks to Framacks, too!"

"What?"

"It's this old Quarian game where you put down a card, and then you put down another -- you know what, I'll just go get it, it will make more sense."

And so, that was how Shepard's quiet late night milk drinking session turned into her sitting at the mess with everyone else holding cards marked with strange green fruit.

"All right, so I put a card in the middle," said Tali, "and then you look through your cards and see if one's related. Then you put it in the middle and tell us how it fits." She shuffled through a large stack of cards sitting next to her. "All right, first card is ... the Citadel!" She placed a card in the middle of the table.

"I'm going to put my Blasto card down," said Kelly, scooting a card toward the middle of the table. "Every time I go to the Citadel, I hear an ad for a Blasto movie."

"Ooo!" said Tali, putting a card down next to Kelly's. "I'm putting down a turian card. Because they run C-Sec."

Shepard shuffled through her cards. Krogan, biotic amp, dextro-dna ... she didn't have anything good. Finally, she put a card down on the table. "Batarian."

"Batarian?" said Kelly. "How does that relate?"

"Because last week, when we were on the Citadel, I got some ammo for my pistol which I used on that Blue Suns punk on Ilos. He was a batarian."

There was a pause, and a few wide eyed stares. Shepard wasn't sure how to react, so she simply said nothing. It was a match, wasn't it?

“I would have never thought of that,” said Gabby, plainly, and the game went on.

Shepard felt a little shy about playing any more cards that game, even though the krogan one would have been a good one for the time she was on shore leave and found some krogan face plates at the Citadel's indoor pool.

Somehow, though, she got the impression that that would have also gotten wide eyed stares. She kept her cards to herself and slipped out as soon as the party dissipated.

 

Thankfully, they weren't there the next night, allowing Shepard to have her mess time in peace. Apparently girl parties were not nightly events.

As she sat there in the stillness of the night, she thought she heard something ... grunting? It was soft, whatever it was. Why in the hell was there *grunting* on her ship?

She was able to trace the sound down the hallway, to the main battery. She knocked on the door. "Hey, hello? Who's in there?"

“Err, just … just a second.” It was Garrus' voice.

There was a slight shuffle, and then she saw the door lock spin open. She made a face. She didn't want to, exactly, but what she saw before her was pretty awful.

Garrus had managed to peel about half of his bandages off himself. The small gauzy pile left behind on one of the cargo trunks was sticky with blue blood -- some of it had dried, of course, but some of it was fresh, likely disturbed from when he had pulled the bandage off.

And then, on his face, you could see the bloody blue hole that the rocket had left. It hadn't started to heal over yet. The blood shone in the dim light of the room.

"I ... er, hi," he said, trying not to be awkward.

She shook herself out of the moment, out of seeing all of that blood. Not that she was a stranger to it, but it was different when it was a friend. "Whoa, hey, Garrus, can I help?"

"Err." He obviously hadn't intended for Shepard to walk in on this moment. "There's ... if you could just make sure that I've gotten all of the gauze off?"

He turned his face and bent over a bit so she could see better. Actually, he hadn't done that great of a job -- little fuzzy bits of bandage were sticking out of various bloody sticky spots. "You missed a few -- here, I'm going to try and pick them out." She paused a moment. It was gross, sure. Incredibly gross. But, there really wasn't such a thing as cross chirality diseases … probably? ... so at least it wasn't as dangerous as getting human blood all over her. Steeling herself, she reached up and plucked a piece of cottony fluff out of the wound.

She looked around a bit. Garrus, figuring she needed some place to put her trash, pointed to his heap of bandaids. Making a mental note to never, ever sit there again, she put her fluff in the pile and went back to picking.

"There," she said, finally, once she had cleaned out the wound. "You ought to be good." Good was a relative term, the places that hadn't healed up yet were starting to leak blood again.

"Thanks," he said, and put a hand up to remove the last piece of bandage from around the back of his mandible.

She stopped him. "Hey, I'm already bloody. Let me."

"Are you sure?"

She shrugged. "I don't mind." It was kind of a lie, but like she said, she was already coated in turian blood. Besides, the last bandage was sort of wrapped back around his mandible, it looked hard to get by one's self. She actually had to tug at it a little.

"Oww! Careful!"

"Sorry." She tossed the bandage in the pile. "What's the next step?"

He pointed below the console. "Disinfectant. I keep it down there."

"Sure thing," she said, and went to get it.

"You know you don't actually have to -- "

"Nah, I'm kind of having fun playing nurse right now," she said, only half lying. She was glad to help, but secretly wished that it wasn't so nasty.

The disinfectant was a red liquid in a clear bottle. She sloshed it around a little -- she was more than used to the green disinfectant that Chawkwas had slathered on her many a time. There was clean gauze next to the bottle. 

She poured some on the gauze, and then hesitated -- did disinfectant sting turians like it did humans?

"Shepard?"

"Oh, right. Sorry." It probably couldn't hurt any more than a rocket to the face. She shook herself out of it and, very gingerly put the disinfectant on his face. It made him wince; she hated watching it.

"Err, sorry -- "

"It's fine, it just stings a little." His voice didn't sound fine, but she decided to take him at his word.

(art forthcoming)

Garrus walked her through wrapping the gauze through his mandibles and on to her face, and then she taped them back on. He patted his new bandages. "Hey, you're pretty good."

She shrugged. "Aww, thanks."

"No, really, this is much better than what I can do on my own." (How would he know? He wasn't looking at it! Shepard decided not to say anything, though. Take a compliment when you can, she figured.)

"Hmm." She crossed her arms over her chest. "How often do you change it?"

"Every night."

"Then I'll be by every night to change the bandage," she said.

"Really? You don't have to, you know."

"No, I'd like to. I mean, you got that on one of my missions. I'm sort of responsible.”

His mandibles shifted. Did he look amused? Who really ever knew with turians? "I'd argue that that was MY mission that YOU were on."

"Ah!" she smirked. "Then that's why you got your face blown off, I wasn't in charge."

He opened his mouth, probably to say something smart, but then closed it again. Instead, he started to laugh. She couldn't help it, she began to laugh too.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard soon discovered that the girl parties were meant to be weekly.

It wasn't exactly a problem – who would mind going to a party? – but at the same time, it did mean one night away from her alone time. You don't get much of that on a ship.

She also wasn't sure what to tell Garrus about his bandages. She had promised to change them for him. She'd mentioned the night before that she'd be away tonight, but hadn't exactly said why. He was fine with it, but she still felt a little guilty.

Even though she was surrounded by the Normandy's female crew, she found herself thinking about bandages and turian blood, sitting at the mess hall table while some conversation was going on around her. She didn't key into what anyone was saying, lost in her own head, until she heard Kelly shout, “A snow man!”

“An apple tree!”

“A basketball court?

Jack stood in front of a white board that Kelly had propped on the back of a chair, looking angry, or otherwise normal. She had drawn … something on the white board, and a game of Pictionary was currently going on to decode said drawing. The drawing was … circular?

(Shepard secretly hoped it wasn't breasts. She couldn't help it, that's what she thought of when she saw Jack. How could you not?)

It was awful, but it was Pictionary, so that was the point. “EDI?” Shepard called out.

“Hey, look at that! Someone got it!” Jack sneered – could Jack even smile? – and handed the marker off to Shepard. “You won your very own turn.”

Shepard knew it wouldn't do any good to say she couldn't draw. That was the point of Pictionary anyway, right? Drawing poorly? She went up to the board and erased everything with her hand, then thought for a second. Something everyone would recognize … 

Of course! As Shepard began to draw, she heard several people start to call out guesses.

“A data pad?”

“Some boxes!”

“A robot!”

Shepard turned around and made a face. “It doesn't have a round head … ?”

“It doesn't have to be a geth.”

“Hush, you're not allowed to talk, keep drawing!”

She turned around, and kept adding.

“Cereal boxes! Like in the mess.”

“A bunch of omni tool windows?”

“Wait, she's adding stars around it.”

“Space! You're drawing space!”

“That's too boxy to be a mass relay … “

“Is it a very sad looking Citadel?”

Shepard stopped drawing. “I … I don't know what else to add.”

“There's nothing else you can put on there?” asked Kelly.

“One thing, but it might give it away – “

“We need it,” said Jack, “I'm still not convinced that isn't a stack of cereal boxes you jettisoned.”

 

“Wait, then, what was the last detail?”

Shepard picked the last piece of bandage off. “I wrote 'Normandy' on the side of the ship,” she said, flatly. She knew there wasn't any need to be embarrassed, but secretly, it did sting a little that no one had any idea what her picture was. They were around the Normandy all day, they couldn't recognize it?

Garrus started to laugh. “Ouch. So, there's a reason you went into the military instead of art school?”

She was curious to find herself smile along with him. “You can be bad at drawing stick figures and still pass basic,” she said.

“It's fine,” he said, “I can't draw either. I had a buddy in high school who used to sit and draw to get girls.”

“Did it work?”

“Maybe once. I just had to rely on my stunningly good looks.”

“And your modesty?”

They both met each other's eyes for a brief second before they burst out laughing. “Oww, jeez, my face – “

The movement had made some of his wounds come open. Shepard dabbed it off with some clean bandages. “Oh, wow, I'm sorry, I forgot you were … bleedey.”

“No, it's not a problem. I need someone around to take me down a peg anyway.”

“Well, then, happy to be of service.” She turned to get some ointment to bandage him up (so that hopefully his wounds wouldn't come open again.)

“Hey, and … thanks for coming by every night.”

“Almost every night,” she corrected him. “I missed last night so I could make an idiot of myself in Pictionary.”

“No, it's fine. Thanks, seriously.” His mandibles moved in what was very likely a smile. “I appreciate the company.”

She smiled back. “So do I, actually.”

She wasn't sure she trusted the warm feeling she was getting.


	3. Chapter 3

This time, it was Gabby's night to pick the activity for girl's night, and as such, everyone found themselves seated with a skein of scrap yarn and some chop sticks, as Gabby didn't have enough sets of size eight needles for everyone. (Shepard had thought briefly about asking where exactly Gabby was stashing her scrap yarn on the ship, since this *was* a war ship after all and space was at a premium, but decided that the better idea was to keep her mouth shut and not ruin the party. She'd made a mental note that there was, however, something she could chuck out the air lock later if a storage emergency arose.)

Kelly already knew how to knit -- which wasn't that surprising, she just sort of had that girliness about her that gave off that "knitter" vibe, so she was floating about helping people as Gabby gave directions. Shepard was thankful that she had figured out how to cast on quickly, but had set her work aside to try and help Tali, who was having trouble just from a lack of fingers.

"Okay, if you've got twenty stitches cast on," said Gabby, who'd had to move on from Shepard and Tali, "we can start with the knit stitch."

"Wait," said Miranda. "I thought we *were* knitting."

"We were casting on."

"That's not knitting?"

"It's a part of knitting. But you've got to knit after you cast on or else it's not knitting."

Miranda stared with her mouth open.

"Or purl, I guess you could purl. One of the two."

"But if you're purling, you're not knitting?"

"That's right." Gabby shook her head. "Wait. That's wrong. It's ... hush! We're going to knit! Okay. First, you yarn over, then you pull through the loop like this -- " Several faces leaned in as she slowly knit her first stitch.

"That's it?"

"Right, and it should just go on to the other needle."

Shepard and Tali were, at this point, trying to untie Tali. Knitting wasn't exactly on their minds.

"I'm a little more interested in those pearls you were talking about," said Kasumi.

Gabby shot her a look. "They're not the kind you steal. Pee you arr ell. It's kind of like backwards knitting."

Kasumi's hood hid everything but her smile. "But then, why wouldn't I just knit while turned around?"

"It has to do with which way you're pulling the yarn through the loop!" Gabby said, flustered. At this point, Kasumi's wry smile meant that she had figured out she could mess with Gabby.

Still, she bent her head forward and began to fiddle with her needles again, trying to get some yarn on the end so that she could knit or purl or whichever way it went. After a few minutes, she said, "The yarn doesn't stick to the needle very well."

"It's a needle, it's not supposed to be sticky."

"You know what would be more helpful? A hook at the end of the needle."

"You can't use a hook, that would be crochet."

"Which way does the yarn go through the loop to make a crochet stitch, sideways?"

Gabby dropped her needles and waved her hands. "Cut it out! You're just trying to fluster me!"

"Aww, but it's fun!"

"So's knitting." Kelly picked up her work and gave Miranda a half bothered, half playful look over her yarn. "Start stitching."

Shepard and Tali, meanwhile, had finally worked their way down to one knot, which Shepard was prying at desperately while Tali was attempting to get something that looked like a cast on going on her needle. "What does this make, anyway?" Tali asked.

Actually, Shepard hadn't thought of it much before. Quarians probably didn't have much use for yarn craft. When you wear an environmental suit one hundred percent of the time, what use would you have for a knitted hat?

"Everyone's first project is always a scarf," said Gabby. "But once you get that down, you can make all sorts of clothes. I like making sweaters. It's a lot of work, and I don't have much use for them on a space ship, but I like the process."

"The process of getting tied up in yarn?"

"You don't get tied up once you get good at it! There's something nice about just sitting at the end of the day and doing something repetitive while listening to a omnitool cast."

Shepard pulled the final knot free. "I remember I used to get knitted sweaters from my grandma each Christmas," she said. "But they were always really ugly, like bright coral pink or something. One year she even put reindeer on mine."

"See, now, my grandma was the one who taught me to knit," said Gabby. "That's another reason I like doing it, it's a way to remember her. Sitting in her apartment on the Citadel, watching her turn a basket of yarn into something wearable, you know?" She laughed. "Of course, my grandma had better color sense than coral. Knitting makes me think of all that sort of grandma stuff, like the way her apartment smelled like old lady perfume, or the funny shaped soaps she kept in her bathroom. But the best Christmas I ever had was the Christmas I gave her a sweater I knitted her. I made a hat to go with it."

"Most people remember Christmases by what they got," said Miranda.

"No, seriously, making this sweater totally made my Christmas. I was so proud, you don't even know. And she loved it! She wore it out the very next day. She didn't even care that I messed up and made one of the sleeves uneven. I mean, I could tell, but she swore she couldn't. I have no idea to this day if she was being nice or not."

Shepard had a brief thought -- if she ever finished her scarf, and that was a big if, she could of course send it on to her mother for Christmas.

But, she then remembered that her mom would more than likely also be getting another knitted monstrosity from Grandma Shepard, so maybe she should just spare her and make something else. Maybe Garrus needed a scarf?

She surprised herself, thinking of Garrus next after her mother … but then, he was her friend from the SR-1, so why wouldn't she? Obviously he just needed a scarf to keep his wound warm, so of *course* she'd think of him next. Nothing else to it.

"Bosh'tet!" When Shepard looked over, Tali had, again, tangled the yarn around her hands. She sighed, and, as she helped untangle her friend, felt a small amount of relief that she might never finish the scarf.

 

"And you were all expected to learn how to knit in one session?"

"It wasn't so bad," said Shepard, peeling the bandage away from his mandible. The blood was still wet and sticky. She tried to concentrate on her story instead. "I was doing okay."

Garrus laughed, gently, so as to not disturb his healing face. "I mean, it took me several lessons to learn how to knit."

"I ... really, you knit?"

Now he laughed harder, forgetting his face. "No, but I had you going there for a second."

"You just don't think of such a trained killer, you know, knitting"

"Have you looked in the mirror?"

Shepard's eyes widened for a second, and then she laughed too. "Right, I came about this close to forgetting."

"No, seriously, I doubt I could even start to knit with only three fingers."

"Funny, Tali couldn't do it either." Shepard poured some ointment onto a cloth. "What would you even do with a scarf?"

"... wear it around my neck?"

"Huh." She tipped her head to the side. "I never thought about it. I guess you do have a neck."

"What the hell did you think this thing was?" He laughed, and stretched his chin outward, indicating said neck.

"It's ... I ... I don't know, I always think more about your cowl thing."

Was that a turian smirk?

"You think about it, huh?" he asked, voice just a little *too* smooth for her liking.

Shepard pressed her lips together. She wasn't going to let Garrus fluster her. She readied the antiseptic. "This might sting," she said, pressing it on his face. His eyes got a little big, and even if they both knew she wasn't really hurting him, she was glad that she managed to distract him somehow.

"Maybe you could hide your scars with some sort of scarf," she said, removing the rag. "You know, when you're all healed up."

"I don't know, maybe this whole scar thing could really work out for me. I could get used to looking like a badass."

"Think you'll get a lot of girls, huh?"

He shrugged. "I don't need *that* many. I wouldn't have time for them anyway. You need my services here on the Normandy too badly."

Shepard laughed. "Uh huh," she said, but inside, she had a warm, giggly sort of feeling.

She tried to push it out of her mind.


	4. Chapter 4

Miranda poked frantically at her omnitool. "Come on, damn it!" She shook her arm. "We get awful coverage out here."

It had been Miranda's turn to pick the activity for girl's night that night, and she had decided on a movie. "It'll be easy," she said, "I'll grab something out of my Extranetflix queue."

She had even dug up an old projector from somewhere, and hung a sheet in the mess for a projector screen off a broom handle, tying it precariously to the Normandy's architecture. (Gabby held a wide eyed, quiet horror when she saw how Miranda had everything rigged, and then offered to fix it up nicer, but Miranda was rather proud of her rig and had declined. Shepard couldn't blame Gabby -- it looked like one good jolt of turbulence would bring a mop handle down on someone's head.)

But now, apparently, Miranda couldn't connect to the extranet. The Normandy tended to get spotty coverage out on the very edges of the Terminus systems, despite Cerberus' advanced antenna technology.

"More bars in more places my ass," she grunted.

Tali peeked over Miranda's shoulder, and for a second, Shepard was sure that she was going to try to 'help' Miranda. But instead, she asked, "What are we watching?"

"One of my favorites. It's an old Earth action movie."

"What's that?"

"It's got lots of ass kicking and car chases," said Miranda. "It's from the 1970s. I love those old kinds of movies, because there's a bunch of punching."

"Aww, but it's girls night! I thought you would have picked one where the girl gets the guy." She paused. "Or the girl, I'm not particular."

Miranda wasn't looking up from her omnitool. She looked hopeful for a moment, as if a brief current of extranet had blown toward the Normandy, but then drifted away as quickly as it had come. "Are you kidding? This is way better. Things actually happen."

"There's no sexual tension!"

"But you don't *need* sexual tension when you've got car chases."

"There's no teary goodbyes two-thirds of the way through the movie that you just know won't last -- "

"A guy gets round house kicked to the face! You don't see that every day."

"Are you kidding?" said Kasumi. "I was out on the last mission with Thane, I saw that at least three times." 

Tali put her hands on her hips. “Whoever's in the movie, he'd better be as good looking as Thane, then. If some heroine isn't going to fall in love with the hero, then I'll take it upon myself.”

“I don't know,” said Shepard, “I kind of like the sound of an entire two hours of ass kicking. What's the movie?”

“Charlie's Angels.”

Tali crossed her arms. “Charlie'd better be cute.” Shepard just stared, she didn't have the heart to explain it to her.

 

“Wait, so you never see Charlie?”

“No, the angels do everything. Tali wasn't impressed.” Shepard dabbed the antiseptic onto Garrus' wounds. She wasn't sure if she was getting gentler or if Garrus' pain tolerance was going up, but he didn't wince nearly so bad any more.

“I don't know, I'm surprised you'd be into action movies. We live in an action movie.”

“It's better than mushy crap.”

“I don't know, there's something kind of hot about watching a girl kick ass.”

“Right, how many girls do you sit around and watch kick – “

She stopped mid sentence. “I … I didn't mean to imply anything.”

She'd learned that his mandibles moving apart like that was the way that turians smiled. “Don't worry about it, I know what you meant.” Then, he tipped his head to the side. “Hey, though, are you okay?”

“... yeah, why?”

“You look pink. Do you need some of my ointment?”

Her eyes widened. “I … pink? It's … nothing.”

That comment haunted her, though, outside the battery, through the mess, and all the way up to her bed. Pink? She'd blushed?

She felt like a mess inside. It hadn't dawned on her exactly *why* she'd been sneaking down to the battery every night until now, but now she knew – she had a sickly sticky warm feeling growing inside her, and she'd been indulging it without thinking. It was that sort of feeling, the wavy sort, the fluttery sort, the one that made you feel stupid in the best way possible. Fostering that? That sort of thing wasn't always smart; now it had caught up to her and taken root and left her in a mess.

It was strange to her, and if you'd told her it was going to happen, she wouldn't have bought it. It wasn't the sort of thing she was known for. She couldn't believe she had a crush on Garrus. Yuck, how middle school.

First off, she was surprised that she could fall for a turian. But then, inter-species relationships weren't that strange, and anyway, his head fringe was sort of cute. Wait, what was she was thinking? Head fringe? That's the sort of thing taking care of someone warm and kind and funny would do to you.

She was uncomfortable with the idea of being involved with a crew member. Cerberus wouldn't care, this wasn't an Alliance ship, but it still felt *wrong*. She'd been raised with Alliance regulations all her life, it was hard to shake them off.

But his head fringe was kind of cute.

And she loved being able to meet him in secret. It was … salacious, almost. 

Whenever she was able to get him to laugh, to part his mandibles like that, it was just –

What was she thinking!?

After considering it, she decided that the best thing she could do right now was to keep her mouth shut. At least keeping status quo wouldn't get anyone in trouble. She could figure out something better to do later.

… she would keep going down to the battery, though. She did, after all, promise to help with those bandages. That was just the right thing to do, right? Right. Of course. … her enjoyment of these trips was secondary. Yes.

She was still going to enjoy it.

Everyone knows that the fun part of having a crush on someone? Is enjoying it, even if it's a little bit, even if it's in your own private head space, and even if you do feel like an idiot when you sigh over something stupid like a turian's smile. She did allow herself to fall asleep thinking about leaning on him.


	5. Chapter 5

“Back on the Flotilla, we used to hold huge gatherings at night, all the teenage quarians. It was a chance to be away from our parents, and – “ She giggled, then sat across from Shepard. “You know.”

Shepard stared blankly. She was pretty sure this wasn't going to be a sex story. Quarians have to be so careful about taking off their suits, Shepard felt pretty comfortable guessing that teenage quarians didn't get together to have wild sex parties.

She cocked her head. " ... flirting?"

Tali sighed, and put her helmet in her hands. "Of course! Actually, that's one of the things I miss serving here on the Normandy. We all work so close together, I'd feel dumb just playing with people. But sometimes, when you've got some anonymity, it's kind of fun, you know?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, like giggling at the clerk when he brings you coffee or batting your eyelashes at someone on the dance floor."

Shepard couldn't stand it, she had to ask: "Does the eyelash thing work out for you often?"

Tali ignored her. "But when you see someone every day, and you're trusting them with your life, you don't want to send mixed signals. Still ... I mean, come on, you don't ever feel the need to just play a little bit at being sexy?"

Shepard stared blankly. "Not ... really."

"Not once? You have a pulse, right?"

"Of course I do! I'm just ... " Shepard could tell that she and Tali were on totally different wave lengths right now, and that one of them would not be understanding the other tonight. "When I get my coffee, I just pay the guy and leave. When I go to Flux, I'm usually there to pump someone for information. It doesn't dawn on me."

"You should try it sometime!"

… of course, *of course* this would be the topic of tonight's party. Shepard wasn't ready to let anyone in to her little realization yet, or even the fact that she'd been having late night meetings with a crew member.

There were ways around this. Shepard leaned forward and batted her eyelashes at Tali.

"Not what I meant!"

"Actually, I'm with Shepard," said Gabby. "I just don't think about it so much."

Shepard put her hands in the air. "Thank you!"

"Well, fine," said Tali. "But you ... hmm." She leaned back in her chair. "I'm not sure how to say what I'm thinking. I guess what I mean is ... surely you like *that* sort of attention. I mean, you're not a robot."

"*That* sort of attention?"

"You know ... just being ... noticed by someone else." Tali was dancing around it pretty well, but it wasn't hard to tell what she meant.

Gabby crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm usually down there in the engine room with Ken. He can be such a dog, I don't *want* him giving me any kind of ... I don't know, horny vibes." 

"Well, right," said Shepard. "I think Tali's talking about wanted attention, though, not unwanted."

"Well, then. Can Jacob be reassigned to the engine room?" Shepard snorted.

"So then you agree that it IS nice!"

"Sure." Gabby shrugged. "If you want it. I guess, if it's voluntary."

Shepard felt Tali nudge her under the table. "How about you?"

"How *about* me?"

She laughed. "You're avoiding giving me a straight answer."

Yes, she was. Shepard shrugged. "It's ... been a while since I've thought about it. You don't get to concentrate that hard on flirting when you're trying to run a ship."

“Oh whatever,” said Tali. “Come on, surely you've tried to get someone's attention.”

She shifted in her seat. She reminded herself that there was no way Tali could ever know that –

“What about Kaidan?”

Shepard was silently thankful that Tali was a bad guesser. “You're kidding. There's a chain of command, I didn't appreciate him being all hang dog on me.”

“Thank you,” said Gabby. Shepard and Gabby high fived – it was nice to have someone on her side.

“Jacob?”

“I'll let Gabby have him.”

Tali nudged her under the table again. “Come on. Seriously. I know you've been dead, but you couldn't possibly be *dead* dead.”

Shepard pressed her lips together to hide a smile. “I guess maybe I can think of one person --”

Tali leaned forward. “Who!?”

Shepard leaned forward, put her hands on her chin, and batted her eyelashes at Tali again.

She got kicked *hard*.

 

Shepard found herself in the battery battling butterflies in herself. She was surprised that she really was doing a decent enough job. It must've been all those years of crushing geth. 

“I could have come down after the party,” she said, pulling the bandages off.

“I need my beauty sleep.”

Shepard wasn't sure why she laughed so hard. Or, rather, she knew exactly why, and wasn't ready to say.

“Let me know when it starts working for you.”

She finally freed the bandage from his mandible. “It's weird how you all are squishy liquid on the inside and hard plates on the outside,” she said, and realized that she should have been thinking harder the moment she said it. Why would anyone say that? That was almost … was that speciesist? She wasn't sure.

Garrus made some motion that caused his collar bone to shift to the side. Maybe it was the turian equivalent of a shrug? "I don't know," he said. "I always figured humans were sticky."

"... sticky?" Shepard stared in disbelief. Where did that even come from?

"Well, yeah. I mean, you've got all that ... " he pointed. "Not scale stuff."

"Skin?"

"Sure. Skin. Isn't it sticky?"

"It shouldn't be! Not if you're showering!" She held her hands out in front of her face, then turned them over a few times. Sticky? What in the hell would make anyone think *sticky*? "We're ... we're fuzzy, maybe."

"That's just the fringe on your head."

"No, look." She rolled back her sleeve, held out her arm and pointed. "We've got all these little tiny hairs all over. Everywhere."

Garrus bent over and squinted hard at her arm. "But it doesn't always look like that."

Shepard was getting exasperated. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it -- what was so hard for Garrus to understand? "It's an arm. It's supposed to look like that."

"Not when you come back from a mission."

It hit Shepard right them what he was talking about. He kept talking, though: "You take off your armor, and you don't look like that. You look wet and shiny and -- "

"Don't say sticky!"

" -- moist."

She sighed. "Fair enough, but that's because I've been out exerting myself. You don't get sweaty? ... err, expel liquid when you get hot?"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so, under my plates."

"Right, but it's not like that all the time."

"True. I mean, you don't look sweaty right now."

Funny, she was starting to feel sweaty.

"See, we just feel like -- " She screwed up her face for a second. How do you describe human skin to something that's never touched it before? In the heat of the moment, she took his hand and placed it on her forearm. "Like this."

He tapped it a few times. Shepard assumed he was trying to find the goo. Then he gave it a squeeze.

"I had no idea you all were so soft." He gave it a big hard squeeze. "See? You come up through my fingers."

Shepard suppressed a laugh – here he was, quite brave to call the hero of the galaxy soft. She might have gotten offended if she didn't know that Garrus had no idea what he was doing.

He let go, briefly, and then watched her skin with intent. "Oh, man! I didn't mean to make you turn red -- whew, it went away." He pressed a finger into her skin, then pulled it back again, watching the color change. 

It dawned on Shepard, later, that *most* of the time the first time you wind up touching a guy you like, it's sort of special. This was just silly.


	6. Chapter 6

Kelly clapped her hands together. "Okay! This is going to be fun! Mini pizza night!"

Laid out before the crew on the table of the mess hall was a spread of small dough crusts. One, on the end, had a vague greenish tint.

Tali spoke up. "That one's for me, isn't it?"

"I couldn't leave you out." Kelly flitted over to the refrigerator. "Now, I couldn't get much in the way of toppings, and anyway Gardner wouldn't give up much space for storage, but I did okay ... let me see ...”

Before long, Shepard found herself seated next to Tali, trying to remember if the tomato sauce went on first or if it was the cheese.

Tali of course wasn't any help, since she had her own small ration of ingredients. "It's a shame you can't try fresh ragarala paste," she said, spreading something purple on her pizza. "It's really the best stuff. Sometimes I used to eat it out of the jar.

Shepard peeked across the table at Miranda's pizza. She had started to spread the sauce on her dough. Okay, then. Sauce first. That worked great.

"We used try to grow ragarala back on the Flotilla," said Tali. Shepard suspected that Tali was so occupied with her story that she didn't notice Shepard's total inability to remember what went on a pizza top. That also worked great. "But there's such limited space, you know? We only had the one plant. My father said it was a good lesson in ... what's that called, that plant science?"

"Botany," offered Miranda.

"Right! That. He said that we needed to know that if we were going to live on the homeworld someday." Shepard was half listening, half waiting for Miranda to get her hand out of the cheese. Why in the world did Kelly get mozzarella, she wondered? Cheddar went on everything.

"It started to grow fruit, though! That was exciting. We were able to trade some with the other families, but mostly, Mom showed me how to cook it into a paste for pizza. You know, with tirnalan and piro added."

Shepard stared blankly.

"... spices? You levo people surely have spices in your pizza sauce too."

"Well, yeah, I just didn't know those were quarian spices."

"Come on, how did you make pizza with your family?"

Shepard shrugged. "I didn't."

Even Miranda looked up from her pie. "Really?"

"I grew up on military ships, and then joined the Alliance when I was 18. I can count the number of times I've cooked anything on one hand." She thought about it for a second. "Actually, probably on Tali's hand. If we had pizza, it was on shore leave at a restaurant or something."

"Huh. Actually, I never thought about that," said Tali. "That's weird that we both grew up on ships, but our family still prepared their own food."

Shepard screwed up her face, then laughed. "I don't think I ever realized that I ever grew up like a quarian."

"All right, so you've never done this. Pizza tastes best with as much stuff as you can get on it."

"I've got the cheese down, I think I can handle it from here -- "

"No, see, when you make it, you can't leave out the most important step. You have to make a face."

"I think it tastes the same, face or no -- "

"No! It tastes much better with a face on it."

Shepard glanced across the table at Miranda, who was stifling a laugh. Tali went on. "Look, I'll show you on mine."

Miranda couldn't take it. She put both elbows on the table, covered her mouth, and began to laugh. "What?" asked Tali, indignantly.

"... what ingredient are you going to use for the helmet visor?" she choked out. Shepard began to snicker too, she couldn't help it.

"That goes on last!" said Tali, and Miranda had to put her head on the table. Delightfully ignoring her, Tali went on to grab a handful of dextro ingredients. She started placing something orange on the pizza. "See? One for the eye, another eye, then the nose ... another nose, and then you make a smile!" Tali arranged the orange squares on the pizza in a curve. Actually, except for the extra nose, it may as well have been a human face.

"You have two noses?"

"We have an extra olfactory slit. It's not a nose in the human sense. Anyway, hand me a slice of terana over there."

Shepard stared blankly.

"The purple one!"

Shepard did as she was told, and Tali placed it over the face. Then she put an extra orange square down at the bottom.

"See? That's our helmet port," she said proudly.

Shepard had already begun to arrange her own face on the pizza -- it wasn't too bad, with pepperoni eyes and a black olive nose. She fiddled with some green peppers to get them to make a mouth.

 

"See, it's all because quarians have bad taste in pizza," Garrus said. "Ragarala makes terrible sauce. Ragatata, now that's much better."

Shepard spread the ointment on a cloth. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No, I'm serious, it's got this peppery sort of bite to it. You should try it sometime."

Shepard shot him a look.

"Right, I keep forgetting."

As Shepard rubbed the ointment in, he went on: "But it's a shame, though. I know ragatara only grows on Palaven, but the quarians? They're missing out. There used to be this little corner place that you could get the best pizza, back in my home town, and they grew their own. I guess Tali's right there, that's the best way to do it. It's a shame they don't have any sort of human food, I would love to take you there some time."

There was a brief but heavy pause -- had Garrus really said that? Did he mean it like that? It wasn't a loaded statement, but ... he might have just been innocent. Shepard tried to read his face. His expression was strange, though. She had no idea what it meant. He looked away quickly.

"You're bleeding less when I rub the ointment on," she said in a small voice. She put the rag aside and searched in her own mind for some way to change the subject. "So, how in the world do you render your face in a pizza?"

"It would take a lot of jirine for the fringe, you know? I'd probably need a little bit of yan for my visor, too." (Shepard was briefly sorry she asked, since she had no idea what any of this was.) "But you know the most important part, right?"

"The ... um ... blue parts?"

Garrus leaned a little closer. She was pretty sure that was a smile on his face.

"You'd have to take a bite out of the side to make it accurate."

She laughed so long and so hard that she had to sit down and lean herself on the console. Garrus felt bad, but the way she kept motioning, he had to guess that she was okay.


	7. Chapter 7

It was Tali's turn that evening to pick the activity, and she had promised everyone that she was going with "an old classic." Of course, she wouldn't say any more than that, and who knew, exactly, what a Quarian classic game was?

When they gathered in the mess that evening, Tali began to shoo people away from the table. "We're sitting on the floor tonight!" she insisted. "Go sit in a circle. Get close."

Once everyone was arranged, Tali clapped her hands together. "Now! I don't know if you all played Would You Rather growing up -- "

Gabby laughed. "Oh my God, really? That's your old Quarian game? I played this in middle school."

Kelly waved her hands. "Yes, but hush, it's fun! Keep going, Tali."

Tali pumped her fist. "I get to ask first! Okay. Okay. Would you rather ... umm ... okay. Lick a drell, or take one whiff under a batarian's armor?"

A collective "OH!" rose up from the circle.

"I've smelled under a batarian's armor," said Shepard. "I'm going with the drell."

"Are you kidding?" said Gabby. "Drell are the ones that make you hallucinate, right? I think I'd like to keep my wits about me."

Shepard shot her a sideways glance. "Well, yes, that was my point." Miranda play hit her in the arm.

"Oh, come on, though," said Kelly. "These things are always better if they're about something juicier."

Gabby waved her hands back and forth. "Ooo! I've got one! Thane or Garrus?"

Shepard decided very quickly that she wasn't going to think about the implications of answering the question. Maybe she could keep a poker face. Maybe no one would make her answer?

This was stupid, everyone was going to have to say something. Maybe she could think of a way to justify saying Thane? She *did* just say she'd willingly lick him ...

Shepard couldn't help but think that that was actually a very good question for a Cerberus crew. She saw a few of the human crew members shift a little; Miranda glanced to the side a bit. No one looked *horrified*, per se, but the idea of choosing between aliens apparently didn't sit as nicely. At least this would be an amusing round of Would You Rather.

Samara spoke first. "Actually, I find Mr. Krios fascinating. His dedication to his religion is admirable, and we've had several late night talks about how our personal philosophies compare." How many people were up late talking on the Normandy, anyway?

Tali elbowed her. "But would you do him?"

She shot her a look. "I don't think either of us are interested in 'doing' the other."

"No fun. I'd do him. I mean, I don't think he'd want a single night of inter-species mixed chirality love making, but if he ever did, he's more than welcome in the engine room."

Gabby looked horrified. "I work there, don't be having booty calls in the engine room!"

Tali leaned in towards her. "I figured he'd take me right on your console."

Gabby squealed as everyone cackled. "Oh! Oh, I'd bleach everything! I'd spray the whole engine down! I'd have to wear gloves for a week!”

"How do you know someone hasn't already had sex in the engine room? I mean, it's a big crew, you know someone's thought of the idea."

"No. Don't suggest it. I'm not going to think about it."

“Ken's always talking about --”

“Stop! Seriously!” she squealed.

"Maybe I'd pick Thane too," said Miranda. "But not in the engine room. I'd need something with a little more ... mood to it."

She elbowed Shepard. "What about you? Garrus or Thane?"

Shepard pressed her lips together for a moment. She knew it was coming. "I don't know, I mean, a few seconds ago, you all were ready to sniff under a batarian's armor instead of kiss the guy."

Miranda cocked her head. "That's true, I didn't think about that. "

"But maybe that's a bonus." A small snicker went up through the group.

"See," said Gabby, "not that Garrus is a bad pick or anything, he's ... I guess a little plain compared to Thane."

Tali shrugged. "See, I've known him so long, I think I just couldn't, even if he was the hottest guy on the ship."

Shepard opened her mouth, then closed it.

She knew she would have to say something, there was no way to get out of Would You Rather without picking. If she didn't answer, everyone would probably know something was up. Something mushy. She tried again. She thought that she'd just go on and lie, but instead, "I think I'd pick him over Thane,” it fell right out of her mouth.

"Really? Why?"

She paused for a moment. She didn't want to give anything away to anyone, because somewhere in the back of her head, she was still twelve years old and didn't want anyone to know that she *like* liked a boy. Besides, he was a crew member, and this was dangerous territory. Cerberus or not, she still didn't feel right about it.

Then, what should she say? That she'd grown close to him over the course of their secret at-night bandage sessions that by the way she'd told none of them about? THAT was a good way to be the topic of every gossip session on the Normandy tomorrow. That there was something about someone else being so funny and warm that made her uncomfortably fuzzy inside? That she couldn't believe that she was starting to find head spikes and mandibles and scars, well, sort of hot?

Of course, she couldn't think forever, that would look suspicious. So, she simply said, "With Thane, you'd get high every single time you'd kiss him. I've got stuff to do. With Garrus, you could keep your head on straight even when you were ... " she coughed, then waved her hand, for lack of a better word.

Tali nodded. "You know, he's a pretty big guy. I bet Garrus is hung."

Tali thankfully had no idea why Shepard burst out laughing and couldn't collect herself for the rest of the evening.

 

“You're awfully quiet tonight.”

“Uh huh.” Shepard was trying to get the bandage on quickly. She doused a rag with antiseptic, hoping that she could get done before he asked –

“So what happened at the party last night?”

Damnit!

“I … we … talked.”

“Wait, no knitting, no pizza? You all usually throw a bigger party than that.

“Nope. Just talked.”

“About what?”

“I dunno. This. That.” She pressed the rag to his face. By the expression he made, she could tell she had done it too hard, so she let off. “It's nice, though. I know this is dumb, but … it's getting easier to talk to them.”

Which wasn't untrue. She could tell that it was less awkward to tell them things … she didn't have to feel dumb for her poor drawings or her inability to make a pizza any more. Hey, she came close to telling them about her horrifyingly embarrassing crush. That was progress.

“You all talked about boys, didn't you.”

Shepard glared. “We talked about Tali having sex with Thane. In detail,” she replied sharply.

“... sorry I asked.”

 

Shepard exited the main gun area. She was used to walking through the late night walk through the mess alone back to her room, but tonight, she found Tali sitting there, alone. ... Tali wasn't waiting for her, was she?

She raised an eyebrow. "You're up late."

"So are you!" There was a giggle in her voice. Shepard wished she could see through her visor.

There was an awkward pause. What in the world was Tali down there for?"

"Welp, lot of stuff to shoot tomorrow. I'm off to my quarters, good -- "

Tali shot out of her seat. "I heard someone coming through here late at night! I had no idea it was you, and I had no idea you were staying up late for REASONS!"

"I'm ... sorry?"

She bounced. "You've got a good poker face, but it's not as good as mine." (Shepard had to cover her mouth, she had no idea if Tali knew what she'd just said.) "I could tell how careful you were last night talking about picking Garrus." She sang 'careful'.

"I'm sorry?"

"Quit playing dumb! There's only one reason in the entire galaxy why someone would choose a turian over a dreamy assassin drell."

"They don't like lizards?"

"Oh, hush! I think it's cute that you've got a crush on Garrus."

Shepard felt herself turn a little pink. “I --”

“You've been caught, don't try to back out of it.”

She shut her eyes tight, knowing she looked guilty. Well, then, if she was going to have to tell anyone, Tali was a good person to pick. "Look, it's another crew member, okay? I'm not proud of myself."

"You would not be the first captain of a ship to -- "

Shepard waved her hands. "I'm not even going to entertain that. I don't care if this is a Cerberus vessel, it still feels *wrong*."

"Fine. You're still allowed to like a boy even if you're going to be boring about it." Tali took Shepard by the hands and bounced over to one of the mess seats. "But tell me what you're doing in there at night!"

"I'm helping him change his bandages."

"Really? No. Seriously."

"That's it. I mean, his scar is healing up, so they're not so bloody any more -- "

"No ma'am." Tali shook her head. "There's more than that going on in there. He can put a band aid on his own face."

Shepard bobbed from left to right for a second. "It might get a little flirty sometimes."

"Dish, damnit, it's like pulling teeth to get anything out of you!"

"He played with the skin on my arm once."

"... that's it?"

"We mostly tell jokes."

"Holy crap, no wonder the crewmen tell jokes about you and your battery operated boyfriend."

"Wait, what?"

"I wanted stories about you two locking mandibles. The bottom part of a human's head is called a mandible, right?"

"No, it's a jaw, and also, what about the crewmen?"

"At least tell me you walk out of that room all warm and fuzzy."

She looked away. She looked back, then down, then played with her fingers for a bit … the tension was too much. It came out quickly, like the floodgates had been opened. "Are you kidding me? It's all I can do to not just totally bounce through the mess and back to my quarters each night I'm in there! It's amazing!" She sat back and grabbed her hair, twirling it a bit. "I didn't know there was anything left in the entire galaxy that could leave me feeling like a big scrambled mess on the inside, but those little secret late night meetings? They're scary and warm and exciting and ... " She shook her head. "Everything that happens in that room is amazing."

Tali clapped. "That's wonderful! I'm really happy for you.”

"I ... thanks. It's actually kind of relieving to let someone else know, you know what I mean?"

“Now, when are you going to get around to telling him?”

“I, uh – “

“Oh, shut up, you *have* to tell him sometime.”

“I don't know, what we've got going now is good.”

Tali tilted her head forward. Shepard had to just assume she was giving her A Look.

“Or you could actually get a little for once.”

“I – hey!”

“Well? You seemed awfully entertained when I said he was hung. You could find out first hand.”

“*Tali!*”

“Just promise you'll tell me? I'm kind of curious now.”

“I … I just don't think I'm ready to jump into bed with him.”

Tali swatted Shepard on the knee. “You bosh'tet. You're shy. You've got to get over that. At least you're not acting like you want to fall through the floor during our parties any more.”

“I … thanks?”

“No, seriously. Now, if we can get the Shepard Who's Brave Enough To Tell Us About How She Can't Make Pizza to talk to the Shepard Who Should Run Right Back Into The Main Battery and Pull Her Shirt Off and --”

“*TALI!*”

“Well?” She sighed. “You know what? It doesn't matter what you decide to do. I'm happy for you. You're at least smart enough to enjoy your time in there, right?”

Shepard smiled. “Right. Thanks for understanding.”

"That's what I'm here for." Tali reached forward and hugged Shepard by the shoulders.

"You're being way too nice to me."

"You can return the favor after I convince Thane to have sex with me in the engine room."

Shepard laughed. "By the way, what was that you were saying about my battery operated boyfriend?"

Tali hugged Shepard again. "That's cute," said Shepard, "but I'd rather know what they were saying about -- "

"No you wouldn't."


	8. Chapter 8

When Samara declared it Bad Romance Novel night, everyone was a little confused.

“It's just … I had no idea that was your thing,” Kasumi said to her as they all gathered in the mess to take their seat for her reading.

“You probably think I'm in serious meditation all the time, yes?”

“Well … yes.”

“I am not,” she replied, and that was all that was said on the topic.

Samara had brought her favorite horrible novel with her that evening. The night's party was dedicated to her dramatic reading … as dramatically as she ever did anything.

“'Will that be all, Mister Harper?' she asked, standing up.

“He looked at her lustily – “

“That's a word?” asked Kelly.

Samara shrugged. “Perhaps it is now. Anyway. 'He looked at her lustily. 'Actually, I was hoping you could look at something else for me.'”

Shepard sighed. If it wasn't the guy's penis, it would be a miracle.

“'Of course, Mister Harper, I'd gladly look at anything for you.'

“You see, I have this wound – “

Tali snickered.

Shepard shot her a look. There was NO way Shepard's situation was the same. Was it? No! It didn't matter, Tali wasn't going to drag her secret out in the open.

Samara continued to read. “'Oh, Mister Harper,' she said, moving in closer and sitting on his desk. 'I'd hate for something to *marr* you.'”

Tali snickered again. Shepard nudged her.

“He opened his shirt, revealing his perfect alabaster pectoral muscles. She couldn't help but reach out and run her fingers down his smooth skin.”

While Shepard was trying to figure out exactly how Mister Harper was scarred up (she was concentrating on the wrong part, she knew, but *still*), she heard Tali snicker again. She nudged her a second time, just barely harder than before.

She couldn't believe Tali might give away her –

Gabby asked, “Hey, Shepard?”

Shepard jumped and yelped – she'd gone so far into her own head and wound herself up so deeply that Gabby'd been a jolt to her system. She landed funny in her chair, and before she could catch herself, she hit the floor.

There was a tense pause, and all eyes were on Shepard, wondering if she was all right. Was she all right? Probably … she *felt* all right, and anyway anyone who takes down thresher maws daily could likely survive a fall from a chair.

She started to laugh, just a bit, which caused Tali to lose it so hard that her helmet hit the table. Sure, Gabby started to exclaim, “I was just going to ask if you were okay, you were looking so nervous!” but it was drowned out over the giggles of the rest of the crew.

Shepard was surprisingly okay with everyone laughing at her.

 

She looked in his bandage nervously – there were only a few blue spots in it. She of course wanted him to heal, but what would she do once that happened? She wadded the bandage up and tried not to think about it.

“I couldn't even make it through a paragraph of a romance novel,” said Garrus. “I'd need some action.”

“Oh, I know,” said Shepard. “It was fun for one night, but I need some blood shed or something.”

“A little bit of gun fire would be good.”

“Right, and some explosions.”

“Maybe a ship crash or two.”

“See?” She swatted him on the shoulder. “I'm glad we think alike.”

“So what was the last book you've read?”

Shepard looked sour for a moment. “You hush, I've been dead two years. It cuts into your reading time”


	9. Chapter 9

Kelly had said in her email that the rule for tonight's party was that no one was allowed to mention that it was the last get together before they activated the IFF, the implication hanging in the air that this could be the last get together *forever*. 

Shepard pretended that it was her turn to select the activity that night because she was the least likely to pick something sentimental. In reality, she knew that Samara had suggested it at the end of the last party as a way of getting out of picking something. Whichever, she knew what she was going to go for. 

Everyone gathered around the mess table as she dug in the refrigerator, back in the back where she'd hid something good. Finally, she resurfaced with two cartons of beer -- something that she likely snuck aboard and hid, but everyone knew that if anyone had asked any questions, she could have claimed Captain's privilege.

"This is a game we used to play back when I was a lieutenant," she said. "The first, and probably most important part of the evening, is to get this going through your system." She coughed. "The second is to make sure Anderson doesn't find out, but I don't think that'll be a problem."

"Who's Anderson?" said Kasumi.

"Perfect." She tossed Kasumi a can. "Now get to it."

 

Everyone had found themselves, in their intoxicated state, down in the Normandy's hanger, an otherwise uninhabited area of the ship. "All right, the game is simple. We used to do this as a stupid, ineffective way to keep up PT," said Shepard. "Or settle bets. Maybe." Her lieutenant days weren't coming back to her quite as easily at the moment. "Alls you do is you and .... someone else race to the other end and back."

"That's it?"

"The alcohol's what makes it challenging, trust me." She swallowed briefly, trying to decide whether the floor was moving or not. "We used to set up obstacles and stuff, too, but I think we can start by playing on easy mode. We'll get there, though. You haven't lived until you've wrestled a huge private while trying to climb over a Mako." (Kelly snorted, then bent over, laughing at the word 'private'. She was a paragon of maturity in her inebriated state.) "Anyway, who wants to go first?"

"I'm going to need, like, six more beers if I'm going to get brave enough to race you," said Miranda, turning to see where the carton went.

"Aww, come on, it's not even ... " She looked down the end of the cargo bay. "It's not even like a hundred feet or something maybe." That could have been right, if she could remember how long a foot was."

"Yes, but you're a soldier. You're good at ... that thing where you go faster than me."

Tali was standing close to Shepard, which gave her an idea. She swatted her in the shoulder. "You and me oughta go first, then."

"I'm with Miranda, I'm not a very good runner."

"But you're sober and I'm not." Tali hadn't had anything to drink, since Shepard couldn't find anything alcoholic and dextro compatible on her quick Citadel shopping trip. "You've got the advantage."

Tali paused for a moment to mull it over. Shepard tapped on her helmet. "You still in there?"

"You ARE kind of swishy, aren't you? You know what? Sure, let's race. If I lose, I'll just try to get you drunk enough to where you won't remember this anyway."

"See, there's the spirit."

Shepard found that she could remember quite a few moments from the race, even if the whole thing was overall patchy. She remembered standing next to Tali on an improvised starting line, she was pretty sure Gabby was the one who counted them off, and she could remember actually starting out quite a bit ahead of Tali.

But turns are hard when your feet aren't working right, and she came about a nose length away from running smack into the cargo door. When she tried to stop herself, she faltered and started backwards. Something squishy broke her fall, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself covered in a purple cloth.

She tried to unwrap herself, but she'd somehow gotten tangled ... either that, or she was too inebriated to understand which way to pull to free herself. Was that Tali laughing at her?

Finally, two hands took the sides of the cloth and pulled them so that Shepard's face was free, but her head still covered. Looking at Tali's bare helmet, she figured out exactly what she'd gotten wrapped up in.

"Is ... is this bad?" she asked. Tali laughed harder.

"You make a funny looking quarian," she said.

"Here, you should have your purple back." Shepard pulled the cloth over her own head ... sort of. Her right arm was still wrapped up. She pulled at it a bit before giving up and spreading the cloth back over Tali's helmet. Impaired though she was, she could only get it over her face before getting confused, and then pulling at it with her trapped arm.

Tali swept the cloth away from her face, and freed Shepard's arm. She was still laughing. Shepard felt herself catch it -- at first it started as a snicker, then a giggle, and before long, both of them were laughing so hard that they were laying flat on the Normandy's floor.

Shepard tried to place the cloth back on Tali's helmet again, but she was laughing too hard, and drunk, and both of them were on the floor, and as such only succeeded in tossing it on Tali's face. Tali tossed the other half on Shepard's face, and the last thing she could remember that night was a vague purple haze, the smell of Tali's laundry detergent, and various footsteps coming over to the other end to see what was going on.

 

"So, I bet you have no explanation for why the cargo bay smelled like a frat house this morning."

Shepard wouldn't even look over at Garrus as she prepared the antiseptic, but the way she pressed her lips together in a barely contained smile told him everything he needed to know. "I have no idea why the cargo bay smelled like anything," she said.

"Right. It's pretty good to be the captain."

"It is *great* to be the captain."

She removed the bandage, then looked it over. "There's no blood in this."

"Oh."

"There hasn't been any blood in your bandage for a few days."

"... hmm."

There was a heavy silence. Shepard didn't want to say it, but she knew it was one of those Very Reasonable Things that had to be said.

"It's good that … I'm glad you're healed up. That's awesome."

"Dr. Chakwas didn't say when I was supposed to stop."

Shepard looked at her feet. “Your face is healed, though. You don't need more help.”

It would mean that she'd get her evenings alone back, but.

"I probably still need the ointment. You could do that."

She sat down beside him. “I want to … look, we both know that's dumb.”

"What do you mean?"

Here it was, time to double down. She was shaking in her boots, sure, but she was going to have to either say something or stop coming to see Garrus.

"I could just ... come down here. Just because."

He smiled. Likely. (Why couldn't she make friends with anyone with normal facial expressions?) "I like just because. That's a good reason."

She screwed her face up. It would be a miracle if she could get through this without giggling or throwing up. "No, you're a good reason. I think I'd just come down here to see you."

They looked at each other for a moment. She was nervous – she was pretty sure her heart had actually migrated up to her throat – but determined, and she was tired of living everything out only in her head. She knew that this was something she wanted more than anything.

It took everything she had to reach down inside herself, lean up, and kiss him on the uninjured cheek.

She pulled away with her eyes closed, hoping that whatever came next came quick.

She felt Garrus take her by the shoulders. "I thought for sure I was going to have to make the first move," he said.

“Are … are you kidding?”

“You get so shy. I figured my face would keep bleeding long enough to give me some time.”

Her jaw dropped. “You're kidding, you mean – “

He shrugged. “It's not so bad having a pretty girl come down and nurse your face back to health.”

Shepard started to look down, but Garrus took her chin, tipped it up, and kissed her again.


End file.
